Charity to recruit ex-rough sleepers

A homelessness charity is pledging to fill up to a quarter of
its staff vacancies with former rough sleepers.

London-based Thames Reach Bondway wants this group to make up 10
per cent of its 321-strong workforce by 2007. Chief executive
Jeremy Swain hopes to increase this to 25 per cent eventually.

Funded by London Housing Foundation, Oak Foundation and Off the
Streets and Into Work the £533,000 project also involves
homelessness charity Broadway.

Swain said the project would inspire homeless people and create
new aspiration as they saw their friends take jobs in the
sector.

But he warned it would require a “culture change” in his
organisation and eventually in the sector as a whole. “I hope this
is where the whole sector moves and it becomes the norm. It’s a
bigger revolution we’ve got in mind,” Swain said.